WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. officials said Monday the federal government plans to release later this week new security requirements for facilities working with potential bioterrorist agents such as anthrax and smallpox.
Experts said, however, the provisions will do little to prevent those with nefarious intentions from obtaining the deadly agents.
The security provisions, which could be released as early as Tuesday, are intended to "help us safeguard these agents," Dave Daigle of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta told United Press International. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, will release the final version of the regulations.
One revelation to come out of the anthrax mailings last fall was authorities did not know which of the thousands of private, university and government laboratories in the United States were working with deadly bacteria and viruses that could be used as bioweapons. The labs generally work with the agents to understand how they cause disease and to develop treatments against them.
The security improvements, which are required under the Patriot Act passed by Congress last year, will make it easier to track down the culprits involved if there ever is another anthrax attack, Daigle said. The person or persons responsible for the anthrax mailings last year have yet to be identified.
The CDC issued a guidance last week to help facilities implement the new requirements, and this provides a glimpse into the provisions to be released this week.
Most important, facilities working with these agents will have to register with a national database, Daigle said.
"Every facility will have to submit a biosecurity plan," he said. This includes conducting a risk assessment of physical security, reviewing the security of electronic data, regulating access to areas where bioweapon agents are located, developing procedures for maintaining an inventory of the agents and developing emergency response plans.
Personnel who will have access to potential bioweapons agents will have to undergo a background check, Daigle said. This likely will include checking their criminal history and whether they have ever been suspected of being involved with terrorist groups.
The new regulations impose stiff civil and criminal penalties for not complying with the new requirements. The plan goes into effect 60 days after it is issued so facilities will have to be in compliance sometime in February, Daigle said.
The provisions should improve security at many labs but will not prevent people from obtaining the deadly agents, said Janet Shoemaker, director of public and scientific affairs at the American Society for Microbiology, which worked with Congress to develop this legislation.
"We're never going to have a guaranteed system here ... but it's going to be a great improvement," Shoemaker told UPI. Until the anthrax mailings last fall, she noted, the labs had done a good job in keeping dangerous agents from falling into the wrong hands.
"Up until Sept. 11, we didn't have any accidents or threats to the public," she said. "What we're talking about now is increased regulation because the public is concerned. But a dedicated terrorist will get access. ... There are other places in nature where you can get access to these pathogens."
Henry Miller, a bioterrorism expert at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology, also thinks the new requirements will do little to prevent another bioterrorist attack.
"Those who have nefarious purposes in mind won't adhere to the rule," Miller told UPI. "You can get samples of (bioweapon) organisms without too much difficulty," he said, noting that anthrax can be obtained form the soil and botulinum toxin can be gotten by simply putting "chicken guts in a sealed jar for a few days."
In addition, many labs may consider the provisions too burdensome and may elect to ignore them, Miller said. "Research labs often operate on a shoestring budget and are often not amenable to unnecessary paperwork and red tape." Nuclear facilities have ignored controls for radioactive materials and he sees a similar possibility for facilities working with potential bioweapons in regard to these new requirements, he said, adding, "I don't have great hope for compulsive compliance."
However, Shoemaker noted the penalty for failing to comply could include up to 5 years imprisonment and up to $250,000.00 in fines.
If that is strictly enforced, that could help ensure facilities adhere to the regulations, Miller said.
Another possibility is some labs might decide the provisions are too costly or labor intensive to implement and might opt to stop working with bioweapon agents.
Whether that will happen "is a big unknown at the moment," Shoemaker said. However, she noted Congress has proposed nearly $1.8 billion for biodefense spending, and if that gets passed, presumably some of that money would go toward aiding institutions and universities to upgrade their facilities to meet the new requirements, she said.
